Hi everyone, I’m considering buying a Hapax as a hardware sequencer for Novation Summit, Modular and potentially Gigitone and Digitakt. I come from a background of writing piano scores and would like to write linear compositions for these devices (i.e. not loop/pattern based) and want to get away from drawing rectangles with a mouse in logic. Seemingly no hardware sequencer wants to do this job as it’s first port of call but I’m wondering, is there anything to prevent me using each pattern more like a ‘section’ and chaining up to to 16 sections together? I often compose in sections at the moment, for example A, B, C, D etc and each may be a different length, have tempo changes, time sig changes etc bar to bar. It wouldn’t seem like there’s anything in the Hapax that would stop me from reading around the subject but would appreciate experienced users views on whether I’m going to run into any obvious limitations and what the experience of doing this might feel like in real life. Thanks in advance.
Tempo changes cannot be automated unfortunately. Time signature is also set per project but this is mostly to do with UI, and nothing prevents you from making patterns of arbitrary length.
Chaining patterns is explicitly supported, you can set a “follow action” that triggers the next pattern in the track.
get a Deluge.
Thanks Chris, is this your preferred sequencer?
Thanks for the heads up about the tempo, think I can work around the time signature restrictions but tempo is worth considering
for linear (piano roll style) sequencing, yes. but doesn’t have the deep MIDI feature implementation that Hapax has gotten in the last few OS updates (although the new open source Deluge community firmware continues to do wonders in expanding its functions). just different tools for different use cases
Having a great time reading through loads of pages here learning a lot! I’m considering either Hapax or Deluge (or just sticking to my MPC One+ biting the bullet and surrender to that for me very non-optimal workflow, if neither of them will fit).
@chrisroland The piano-roll bit is really important for me, and so is building entire complete songs. I understand that there will be no complete perfect daw-replacement by either Hapax or Deluge. Sigh, I remember back in the MS-DOS days making a song in Fasttracker II or ImpulseTracker and that it took a bit over a weekend to learn and then making a song was 2 hours… Am I correct in assuming that Hapax is a quicker path to “just sequence some songs” than the Deluge is? So hard to get a grasp around any of this having zero experience of both the devices.
You come from a linear background like me and its the significant change in workflow which is the major hurdle. I can do real time arrangement mixes so the pattern based system is fine and in fact the Hapax is ideal for this type of thing.But if I have to arrange something ie the track is to complex to record in real time then I use the Hapax synced to my Daw
I cant say for certain you should go for it but if you did Im sure you will manage and it would be a case of getting the head down and on with the job. If any hardware sequencer is to the be the one for your compositions I would definitely say the hapax is an excellent choice
Is it the Daw screen you wish to get away from?
Why are yo uconsidering a hardware seq
just speaking for me personally (and i haven’t really gone back to try the newest Song mode on Hapax since the addition of Follow) but Deluge’s Arranger mode is night and day faster. make a Clip (same as a Hapax Pattern) and you just put it anywhere on the piano roll instantly and that’s it. no chaining of anything to build up a song. other tradeoffs to be sure, like the lack of Hapax’s far more robust MIDI FX but at least in terms of linear songwriting (for me) no real contest
deluge is hands down the winner for pattern + linear approach. you can compose a linear song with patterns and then go back and make any change anywhere without needing a pattern with that change. you can also record a linear track alongside your patterns. but its still no screen, its an all button display which i find inadequate for a detailed view.
theres plenty of linear only midi sequencers from the past that might work for you if you can stand no display at all,
with nice price:
https://reverb.com/item/86127496-yamaha-qx21-digital-sequence-recorder-1980s-black
ill bet you can record from hapax to something like the yamaha. i know you can do it with an older mpc. i do it with my mpc 1000. it captures everything except system exclusive. and sequences can be song length if you want. theyre not as cheap but they work great especially with jjos2xl which is an aftermarket firmware that turns it into an mpc4000, which was the top of the line when the 1000 was released. everything is upgraded from the stock firmware. it does midi beautifully imho.
also you can make a list of patterns and turn it into a pattern. of any length… and then overdub. so similar capability for half the price of deluge with display and very nice hardware conducive to live playing and manipulation. good for performance from 2003. jjos upgrades the sample playback too. im never selling.
A while back, I submitted a feature request to add an automation lane for tempo changes, including accelerando and ritardando.
Please submit a request for this as well!
I jist wanted to say that in my opinion the piano roll on the Hapax isn’t very good.
It shows few lines and there’s no indication of which note a line represents.
It’s ok for rhytm but not for melody or chords.
I would not recommend Hapax for someone who consider the piano roll very important.
Sent the feature request also, it would be helpful for sure